Complaint to Ofcom Regarding “The Great Global Warming Swindle”

Not mentioned in the Channel 4 programme, however, is the ongoing dispute in the scientific literature about Friis-Christensen’s work. These include Damon and Laut’s 2004 discussion paper: Pattern of Strange Errors Plagues Solar Activity and Terrestrial Climate Data, which is available in PDF format at http://tinyurl.com/33cjor; and Peter Laut’s 2003 peer reviewed paper: Solar activity and terrestrial climate: An analysis of some purported correlations, available in PDF format at http://tinyurl.com/2ule4h; which found “a pattern of strange errors” and “questionable handling of the underlying physical data”. Damon and Laut have argued in several papers that the apparent correlation between solar activity and temperature in the last century found by Friis-Christensen and colleagues was merely an artefact of improper data handling (mixing filtered and unfiltered data on the same curve). “Nevertheless,' wrote Damon and Laut in their discussion paper, “the authors and other researchers keep presenting the old misleading graph.”

Friis-Christensen and Lassen have responded to the criticisms in the literature. In this example in the Journal of Geophysical Research (http://tinyurl.com/39hka9, they reiterate the statistically significant correlation between solar cycle length and temperature, but do not rule out a warming contribution from anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

In summary, Friis-Christensen is primarily an astronomer rather than a climatologist; and the papers he has published on climatology, which, with Shaviv’s paper formed the centrepiece of the Channel 4 programme, have been strongly disputed in the literature. Yet this was not mentioned in the Channel 4 programme.

Professor Syun-ichi Akasofu

Professor Akasofu retired on January 31, 2007 as Director of the International Arctic Research Center (IARC), Fairbanks Alaska (see http://tinyurl.com/3xgpbl). He is a distinguished astronomer with an excellent publication record (see http://tinyurl.com/ys2t8w).

However, the programme did not disclose that his field of expertise is astronomy, especially with regards to Auroras (the “Northern and Southern Lights”), and that he has no known expertise in climatology.

See also: http://tinyurl.com/ytkva9 and http://tinyurl.com/2354z4.

Professor Ian Clark

Ian Clark is a Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa, and has published 47 peer-reviewed articles (ISI WoS).

Despite the documentary’s contention that he is a “leading Arctic palaeoclimatologist”, only a small number of his papers are connected with palaeoclimate (and those are poorly cited by other scientists); with most being on hydrology and geochemistry. In addition, contrary to the impression given by the programme, he has not published anything on Antarctic ice cores, or on the lag between carbon dioxide and temperature.

Continued …